Government contracting model for public bus industry
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Originally posted by sgbuses:
Remember purchase and ownership of buses under the London contracting system falls under the operators, not Transport for London. There are many mid-life buses that are cascaded to other regions within by operators the UK when the contract is lost or requirements change during renewal. A review of the system in 2009 for Transport for London suggested that this method is not seen as being sustainable in the long-term by operators. This is especially true for the NBfL.
Transdev Melbourne had to bear the legacy of previous operators' choice of fleet purchasing when they took over 500 buses, consisting of no less than 25 different bus models!
Dealing with so many different models is going to be a nightmare to whoever is in charge of maintenance, and drive up costs (which this government is seeking to reduce under the competitive tender model). Training is going to be a major issue as well.
To save training costs for the subsequent bus companies, I think LTA should ask SBS Transit and SMRT to ownself assign their respective bus drivers and technicians to only one particular bus model and give LTA a list of names to use to re-assign bus drivers and technicians to if their bus model has been re-assigned to other bus services, so that whoever is driving and maintaining whatever bus model now will continue to drive and maintain the same bus model that he is driving or maintaining.
To make things simple, I believe the existing buses being used now would remain in their respective bus services and even if not, the buses would be re-deployed to other bus services within the same package area. Likewise, the bus drivers driving and the technicians maintaining the affected buses would also be re-deployed. Being in the same package area would enable the bus driver and technician to keep their job as they would not be geographically inmobile to their workplace (which is usually in the same area as where they stay), while allow the bus company to save on training costs, as the existing buses would be driven by the same bus drivers that are driving them now and be maintained by the same technicians.
With this, training is only required for the usual groups:
- new bus drivers and technicans.
- drivers selected to drive and technicians selected to maintain new bus models.
While this would enable the new bus company to save on the training costs, it would also shorten the transition process to new bus operator, thus benefit the commuters.
Of course, if halfway through the contract period LTA replaces existing bus models with new bus models, whichever company that has the contract would have to train the bus drivers and technicians to drive/maintain them.
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Bro it is veri complicating in SG case... Mos contracts for overseas own their buses... Reduce hassle
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Originally posted by sgbuses:
Remember purchase and ownership of buses under the London contracting system falls under the operators, not Transport for London. There are many mid-life buses that are cascaded to other regions within by operators the UK when the contract is lost or requirements change during renewal. A review of the system in 2009 for Transport for London suggested that this method is not seen as being sustainable in the long-term by operators. This is especially true for the NBfL.
Transdev Melbourne had to bear the legacy of previous operators' choice of fleet purchasing when they took over 500 buses, consisting of no less than 25 different bus models!
Dealing with so many different models is going to be a nightmare to whoever is in charge of maintenance, and drive up costs (which this government is seeking to reduce under the competitive tender model). Training is going to be a major issue as well.
Transdev Melbourne took a huge chunk of the bus system, the buses came from at least 4 companies, from what I can see it was just the Vic government tendering too large an area out.
Sydney allows buses to be chosen by the operators themselves, but these are owned by the government, go figure.
In Singapore, if the government chooses only one brand, would there be a possibility that it may breach WTO trade agreements, since it is a country and not just a city? So the safe bet here is to allow operators to choose what they want, furthermore, the operators have the engineering expertise when it comes to selecting and maintaining buses, do you think LTA would want to increase their headcount unnecessarily by employing extra engineers and train them while the job could be simplified by letting the operators choose for themselves.
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Originally posted by Scania:
Transdev Melbourne took a huge chunk of the bus system, the buses came from at least 4 companies, from what I can see it was just the Vic government tendering too large an area out.
Sydney allows buses to be chosen by the operators themselves, but these are owned by the government, go figure.
In Singapore, if the government chooses only one brand, would there be a possibility that it may breach WTO trade agreements, since it is a country and not just a city? So the safe bet here is to allow operators to choose what they want, furthermore, the operators have the engineering expertise when it comes to selecting and maintaining buses, do you think LTA would want to increase their headcount unnecessarily by employing extra engineers and train them while the job could be simplified by letting the operators choose for themselves.
The current SG bus fleet has too many rigids 2 axle, based on population projections n certain road restrictions, 3 axle rigid shld solve the bunchin n capacity problem w an increase in productivity while reducing pollution at the same time
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Originally posted by Scania:
Sydney allows buses to be chosen by the operators themselves, but these are owned by the government, go figure.
For NSW, operators have to choose from a pre-approved list determined by the government's Bus Procurement Panel. It is not without its own set of problems:
http://www.busnews.com.au/news/industry/1204/bus-supply-panel-starts/
Whether operators get to choose, the answer could lie on who will be in charge of maintenance. From the Independent:
Under the new centralised ownership of assets by the government, would the government be responsible for the maintenance of the bus fleet? The devil, as always, in the details. We await more information from LTA.
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Originally posted by Scania:
In Singapore, if the government chooses only one brand, would there be a possibility that it may breach WTO trade agreements, since it is a country and not just a city? So the safe bet here is to allow operators to choose what they want, furthermore, the operators have the engineering expertise when it comes to selecting and maintaining buses, do you think LTA would want to increase their headcount unnecessarily by employing extra engineers and train them while the job could be simplified by letting the operators choose for themselves.
If you look at a few current tenders, Gebiz does accomodate procurements covered under the WTO-GPA. The bids should be considered on its own merit. Kawasaki/CSR Sifang won both C151A and C151B contracts on two seperate occasions.
A more likely outcome is that there will be a bulk purchase tender for new buses in batches, as per current practice by public operators. HDB did that for elevator installations in new flats and LUP for every few years.
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Originally posted by sgbuses:
If you look at a few current tenders, Gebiz does accomodate procurements covered under the WTO-GPA. The bids should be considered on its own merit. Kawasaki/CSR Sifang won both C151A and C151B contracts on two seperate occasions.
A more likely outcome is that there will be a bulk purchase tender for new buses in batches, as per current practice by public operators. HDB did that for elevator installations in new flats and LUP for every few years.
I do believe a way of making operators more efficient is to allow them to buy their own buses, based on what they think is best for them, and not create inefficiencies through bad purchasing decisions, unlike western countries, the fares here are very cheap, any bad fleet decisions by a agency which knows nothing about fleet management can mean a more than proportionate increase in public spending on transport, which is not what any government wants.
Cue: O.500LE CNGs when the Transperth contrct was held by Mercedes Benz, and they can't back out in just a short time as that contract was valid for a number of years.
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Originally posted by sgbuses:
For NSW, operators have to choose from a pre-approved list determined by the government's Bus Procurement Panel. It is not without its own set of problems:
http://www.busnews.com.au/news/industry/1204/bus-supply-panel-starts/
Whether operators get to choose, the answer could lie on who will be in charge of maintenance. From the Independent:
In the meantime, since it hasn't been confirmed whether fleet decisions will be made by whom, it is best for you not to make comments such as below, as they are just your views, nothing have been confirmed, and the way it has been phrased makes it sound as if it has been cast in stone.
I think many in the community are still completely unaware of what they are in for.
They are still dreaming what fancy buses new operators will purchase...
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Originally posted by Scania:
In the meantime, since it hasn't been confirmed whether fleet decisions will be made by whom, it is best for you not to make comments such as below, as they are just your views, nothing have been confirmed, and the way it has been phrased makes it sound as if it has been cast in stone.
By fancy buses, I am referring to far-fetched suggestions such as bi-articulated buses or NBfLs. I will not name names.
Cast in stone? No, but that brings me to the next point...
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Originally posted by Scania:
I do believe a way of making operators more efficient is to allow them to buy their own buses, based on what they think is best for them, and not create inefficiencies through bad purchasing decisions, unlike western countries, the fares here are very cheap, any bad fleet decisions by a agency which knows nothing about fleet management can mean a more than proportionate increase in public spending on transport, which is not what any government wants.
Cue: O.500LE CNGs when the Transperth contrct was held by Mercedes Benz, and they can't back out in just a short time as that contract was valid for a number of years.
Even so, a different set of issues can arise from operator made fleet decisions. I think it is almost certain LTA will have the final say in fleet decisions.
a) How can one be so sure that an operator, especially foreign, will get it right the first time? What if they decide to get new buses in small quantities during the term of their contract? Operators can still make bad fleet purchase decisions, particularly if the new foreign player has little experience in understanding the dynamics of Singapore's public transport.
If bad fleet decisions were made by the operator, LTA ultimately is the one stuck with these buses. Either the next operator will inherit the problem (or colourful) fleet the previous operator has left behind resulting in continued inefficiency, or LTA has to clean up the mess.
b) If LTA (and consequently, the taxpayers) foots the initial bill and tells the operator they can buy any bus they want, the operator is certain to buy the latest and most expensive buses from the market to impress (well they aren't paying anyway, why not?). The public already isn't very happy with the fact that they will be paying for future new buses, and they last thing they want is to pay more out of their own pocket.
c) Alternatively the operator could undercut and propose to buy lower quality buses, knowing that they would be out in five years (or earlier if they go bust, look at a few MRT contractors). At the end of the contract, LTA ends up getting stuck with these substandard buses and eventually has to dispose of them. Furthermore, what if the operator operating a unique fleet suddenly went out of business and someone else has to take over on short notice? Remember that after the SMRT China driver strike, SBS Transit BCs had to be re-trained to drive on SMRT's bus fleet and that takes time.
LTA is the one who will face the long-term consequences of any fleet purchase. Therefore, they need to have a decent knowledge on bus procurement regardless whether the LTA or the operator is doing the choosing. If there is anyone who can stop the operator from choosing something stupid or impractical, it would be LTA. Remember the contract lasts for five to seven years, but the buses need to last for at least 17 years.
To prevent the above scenarios from happening, I would think LTA would want to have the final say over fleet procurement and I believe that they will be take a rather conservative approach, looking at BSEP so far.
As for long-term contracts, I made it clear that it is an *if* situation in my first reply and it is up for debate.
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Originally posted by sgbuses:
Perth's version of SMRT wants a piece of the action.
God forbid they take over any bus services in your neighourhood.
Who? Path Transit, Swan Transit or Transdev?
Anyway, several depots in Perth have changed owners. Joondalup and Wanneroo went from Path Transit to Transdev in 5/2011, and Karrinyup went from Path Transit to Swan Transit the same month.
Path Transit lost its monopoly over all the northern suburbs bus routes, but managed to wrest the Kalamunda contract in 12/2012 from Swan Transit, gaining Welshpool and Kalamunda depots.
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Originally posted by iveco:
Who? Path Transit, Swan Transit or Transdev?
Anyway, several depots in Perth have changed owners. Joondalup and Wanneroo went from Path Transit to Transdev in 5/2011, and Karrinyup went from Path Transit to Swan Transit the same month.
Path Transit lost its monopoly over all the northern suburbs bus routes, but managed to wrest the Kalamunda contract in 12/2012 from Swan Transit, gaining Welshpool and Kalamunda depots.
At least now I have a choice between two operators since this year.
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Originally posted by Pervertedboy:
To save training costs for the subsequent bus companies, I think LTA should ask SBS Transit and SMRT to ownself assign their respective bus drivers and technicians to only one particular bus model and give LTA a list of names to use to re-assign bus drivers and technicians to if their bus model has been re-assigned to other bus services, so that whoever is driving and maintaining whatever bus model now will continue to drive and maintain the same bus model that he is driving or maintaining.
To make things simple, I believe the existing buses being used now would remain in their respective bus services and even if not, the buses would be re-deployed to other bus services within the same package area. Likewise, the bus drivers driving and the technicians maintaining the affected buses would also be re-deployed. Being in the same package area would enable the bus driver and technician to keep their job as they would not be geographically inmobile to their workplace (which is usually in the same area as where they stay), while allow the bus company to save on training costs, as the existing buses would be driven by the same bus drivers that are driving them now and be maintained by the same technicians.
With this, training is only required for the usual groups:
- new bus drivers and technicans.
- drivers selected to drive and technicians selected to maintain
new bus models.
While this would enable the new bus company to save on the training costs, it would also shorten the transition process to new bus operator, thus benefit the commuters.
Of course, if halfway through the contract period LTA replaces existing bus models with new bus models, whichever company that has the contract would have to train the bus drivers and technicians to drive/maintain them.
Sv 73 is full Scania KUB Euro V. You mean a Citaro will not be allowed to appear on this service just because of this?
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Say bye-bye to the cameo thread...
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I think Volvo has a high chance of securing the contract for new buses in the future. This is because currently Volvo has all 3 types of buses in the market, the B9L, B9LA and the B9TL and all of them uses the D9B engine. This would make training and maintenance much easier for LTA as well as the operators. Not to mention that LTA would also inherit a large fleet of Volvo buses from SBS Transit, so it would make sense that Volvo will be chosen.
Scania might have a chance too, if they continue producing KUD buses. If I'm not wrong I read somewhere that Scania has stopped producing KUD buses since the demand isn't very high?
MAN and Mercedes-Benz will have a small chance if they can produce a 12m dd unit within this 2 years and gain enough trust from the SG and HK operators.
ADL has a chance too if LTA does not want to buy articulated buses anymore. The Enviro 500 will have to prove itself during these 2 years.
I am also not ruling out the possibly that the other manufacturers (such as Iveco/Irisbus, VDL as well as the China manufacturers) would also want to supply public buses.
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Originally posted by Scania:
I do believe a way of making operators more efficient is to allow them to buy their own buses, based on what they think is best for them, and not create inefficiencies through bad purchasing decisions, unlike western countries, the fares here are very cheap, any bad fleet decisions by a agency which knows nothing about fleet management can mean a more than proportionate increase in public spending on transport, which is not what any government wants.
Cue: O.500LE CNGs when the Transperth contrct was held by Mercedes Benz, and they can't back out in just a short time as that contract was valid for a number of years.
Frankly I think you just can't bear to let go of the thought of having a homogenized fleet purchased by govt (read not single-type fleet).
1. Like I have already mentioned before, the IBMS is not something you can just stick onto a bus. If you have 3 types of buses, you will have to have 3 kits to deck the bus out. If you have 20 buses......well, too bad, 20 kits then. The contractor will charge LTA more for that.
2. Trying to purchase different buses for this and that was never the style of the govt. In any case, a "one-size-fits-all" approach does have advantages as well. See point 1 for an example.
3. The mantra of the competive tendering approach as applied here involves "leveling the playing field". Which was the driving force behind point 1 as well. If buses are to be leased out to market players as in this case, having a homogenized fleet will serve the cause better.
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Originally posted by SBS9C:
I think Volvo has a high chance of securing the contract for new buses in the future. This is because currently Volvo has all 3 types of buses in the market, the B9L, B9LA and the B9TL and all of them uses the D9B engine. This would make training and maintenance much easier for LTA as well as the operators. Not to mention that LTA would also inherit a large fleet of Volvo buses from SBS Transit, so it would make sense that Volvo will be chosen.
Scania might have a chance too, if they continue producing KUD buses. If I'm not wrong I read somewhere that Scania has stopped producing KUD buses since the demand isn't very high?
MAN and Mercedes-Benz will have a small chance if they can produce a 12m dd unit within this 2 years and gain enough trust from the SG and HK operators.
ADL has a chance too if LTA does not want to buy articulated buses anymore. The Enviro 500 will have to prove itself during these 2 years.
I am also not ruling out the possibly that the other manufacturers (such as Iveco/Irisbus, VDL as well as the China manufacturers) would also want to supply public buses.
Procurement is not as simple as that.
Then again, procurement can also be too simple as well.
Irony indeed.
In short, don't bother trying to figure it out.
For all you know, no more Euro buses in future. Far-fetched. But not impossible.
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Question: Did SBST and SMRT agree to this?
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
Procurement is not as simple as that.
Then again, procurement can also be too simple as well.
Irony indeed.
In short, don't bother trying to figure it out.
For all you know, no more Euro buses in future. Far-fetched. But not impossible.
An example is the Price Quality Method (PQM). BCA explains it quite well:
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Originally posted by SMB128B:
Question: Did SBST and SMRT agree to this?
Why don't you email them and ask?
How would we know?
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Originally posted by SBS2601D:
Procurement is not as simple as that.
Then again, procurement can also be too simple as well.
Irony indeed.
In short, don't bother trying to figure it out.
For all you know, no more Euro buses in future. Far-fetched. But not impossible.
maybe we will see 2000 china yutong wab buses in future..........
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Originally posted by SBS9C:
I think Volvo has a high chance of securing the contract for new buses in the future. This is because currently Volvo has all 3 types of buses in the market, the B9L, B9LA and the B9TL and all of them uses the D9B engine. This would make training and maintenance much easier for LTA as well as the operators. Not to mention that LTA would also inherit a large fleet of Volvo buses from SBS Transit, so it would make sense that Volvo will be chosen.
Scania might have a chance too, if they continue producing KUD buses. If I'm not wrong I read somewhere that Scania has stopped producing KUD buses since the demand isn't very high?
MAN and Mercedes-Benz will have a small chance if they can produce a 12m dd unit within this 2 years and gain enough trust from the SG and HK operators.
ADL has a chance too if LTA does not want to buy articulated buses anymore. The Enviro 500 will have to prove itself during these 2 years.
I am also not ruling out the possibly that the other manufacturers (such as Iveco/Irisbus, VDL as well as the China manufacturers) would also want to supply public buses.
dude, its not that straightfwd as 2601D has mentioned. im not going to go into the mechanics of his argument, but to make the key point - whatever LTA (or whoever else the central procument authority for buses in the future) deems the most "value for money" should be selected for procurement. youre adressing the peripheral points that make up the "value for money" idea behind procurements, which is there but not quite there yet. how you want to interpret "value for money" is your call.
Onto single source procurement that 2601D mentioned in an earlier reply, it is in some ways ideal givenn commonality in training/spares etc, but its only effective if these maintenance are done in-house rather than at the dealership. before i go on further, its UNLIKELY that any bus company would invest too heavily in inhouse vehicle maintenance, and that gives them alot more flexibility in procurement (considering that investment in maintenance is an investment of sorts).
as to what LTA would procure after 2016, its pretty much anyones guess, but im looking at least a few of the following points:
**cost (the cheaper the better, since buses in the sg context are loss-making)
**maintenance package attrativeness (unlikely LTA would maintain the buses inhouse, rather by signing a maintenance package with purchase)
**delivery commitments (should be quite self explanatory)
**accessibility vs capacity argument (dont forget that LTA did not instill a moratorium on LE or LF ONLY) -
Originally posted by sgbuses:
We won't know unless it is in the actual contract. And unless LTA tells us publicly it is unlikely we will ever know. This definitely needs to be included.
Swan Transit is like Perth's version of SMRT in my area, and ST indicated that they are interested in bidding (listed as Tower Transit).
Transdev should be interested as well (listed as Veolia, ST isn't up to date). Transdev is doing very well, especially given that they won the biggest contract in Melbourne as a new entrant in the city.
Which area do you live in? Midland, Canning Vale, Armadale, Cottesloe or Stirling? Surely not Kalamunda. -
Originally posted by iveco:
Which area do you live in? Midland, Canning Vale, Armadale, Cottesloe or Stirling? Surely not Kalamunda.Sorry, prefer not to reveal in public.